About three months ago, I received a broad, easier to grow variety of Cryptocoryne nurii. The plants adapted quickly to cultivation and started robust growth. Last week, I was checking up on the plants and to my surprise, I noticed a dead spathe on one of the plants. It was quite unexpected since I had inspected the plants a couple of weeks earlier and hadn’t noticed anything. I checked the other plants, and sure enough, there was another plant sending up a spathe. This time, I caught it in bloom. Here are the pictures…
A fairly well defined collar.
The edge of the limb has protuberances. You can see them in this profile shot..
Another angle..
The leaves are also quite attractive…
Inside the kettle.
I cut away the valve to expose the male flower.
The female flower looks small.
Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes
Late last year I received a plant from Ron Finlayson, a fellow Crypt enthusiast. This plant had been circulating amongst the hobbyist circle as the ‘melt proof Cryptocoryne affinis’. There are records of this plant handed down from one person to another from the early 1900’s! I was thrilled to receive this plant. However, one look at it, I was almost certain this was not Cryptocoryne affinis. I put it into my emersed setup and today it sent up a nice spathe. As I had suspected, it turned out to be Cryptocoryne wendtii. Nice specimen though – and there are 5-6 more spathes on the way – prolific!
Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes
I’d been growing Lagenandra thwaitesii for a couple of years now, and it had finally decided to start flowering. Unfortunately, we had a cold spell and the plant wilted before it could flower. Trying to save the plant from total collapse, I split the mother plant into 4-5 plants. Bad move. It didn’t like it at all, and only one plant survived. However, I did acquire another plant from my friend and fellow crypt expert, Aaron Talbot. The plant he gave me already had a spathe on it, and today it opened up. Onto the pictures!
A great deal of texture on the outside of the spathe.
Inside the kettle, the color is quite amazing! Blood red and incredibly textured. The side walls are also very sponge like.
The female flower has numerous stigmas, unlike the usual 5 -7 in crypts.
The male part of the flower was mature enough that it had started extruding pollen. See the droplets?! That’s the pollen.
Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes
Look back to the Oct 08 / Nov 08 timeframe to the posts I did about trying to grow Cryptocoryne elliptica from leaf pullings. Well, this week, one of the plants I propagated from that method flowered. ~6-7 months from leaf > plant > spathe.
It’s actually got atleast two spathes on there. Check it out.
Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes
I finally managed to get some pictures of the Cryptocoryne longicauda ‘brown’ spathe. It’s bloomed for me a few times before, but for one reason or another, I never got pictures. So, here it is.
Ghazanfar Ghori Spathes
